In Recovery...

I have a day off today at SQL Connections while Kimberly and Jonathan educate the crowds about SQL Server 2012. I thought I'd mess around with my camera (we're driving through the Mojave Desert next weekend so have all our gear with us) and see what I could get. We're up on floor 38 of […]

Three years ago I ran a survey about consistency checking methods. A lot has changed since then, including database sizes, 24×7 operations, and a lot more people reading my blog. I'd like to re-run that survey so we can all get a better idea of what the prevailing methodologies are these days. So, if you […]

I love getting questions in email about SQL Server. I tell every class that they can send me questions and they'll get a response – sometimes just a URL to read, sometimes I engage for hours if it's a really interesting bug, for instance. It's a great way to help the community, it fosters good will […]

We're just back from presenting three Immersion events back-to-back in Tampa (see Brad Hoff's summary here, Tim Radney's here, and Randolph Potter's here) and while there we discussed our plans for the remainder of 2012. I know a lot of you have been waiting to see whether we will add another set of classes later in […]

Earlier today there was a question on the MVP mailing list asking how SQL Server keeps track of per-column modification counts. From 2008 onwards, the hidden system table sys.sysrscols tracks modifications to table columns using the rcmodified column. The hidden system tables (introduced in 2005 when we rewrote the entire metadata management system) are only […]

Yes, it's that time again. We're just about to have the Spring show so its time to start planning for the Fall 2012 show. Once again Kimberly and I will be Co-Chairs of the Conference and we'd like to invite you to submit abstracts for the Fall 2012 SQL Connections conference, to be held in […]

Yes, really. So what? Several times in the last week I've heard of people denigrating anyone who is still running SQL Server 2000 (paraphrasing): How can they possibly still be running on a version that old? Why on Earth haven't they upgraded? *Everyone's* on something more recent. 2000 is old and sucky, so you guys […]

(This essay appeared in our latest SQLskills Insider newsletter over the weekend and generated such a lot of discussion that I thought I’d share it with all of you who just read my blog. I’ve added a few points at the end too.) There’s constant debate in the SQL Server community about whether the current certifications are […]